Hope V Realism
by M2S
Summary: Hope v. realism in Catherine life. Short one shot.


Disclaimer: Don't own them.

A/N: Just a little one shot on hope and realistic feelings in Catherine. Esp. connected to Warrick's marriage.

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Shit just doesn't work out.

That's all you could really say sometimes. She had seen enough of it in her time to know this, but still… there was hope.

Hope, and it was awful and pervasive.

She was a cynical bitch at her best (she felt), but under it all was that little spring of hope that she tried to keep squelched. Hope that her love life would take a turn for the better. She smothered that with the realistic attitude that you couldn't meet quality guys when you worked at a crime lab and most were suspects, victims or witnesses. And you didn't meet quality guys at 8:00 AM in a bar, even in Vegas.

She hoped that her mother would find happiness after a life that seemed full of bitter disappointments. Realism told her that Lily couldn't even identify happiness. Her happiness always seemed to lie in Sam Braun. Then there was the small hope that Lily wasn't wrong about Sam, but realistically, she knew, the evidence told her, that Sam was a murdering bastard.

There was the hope that Lindsey would take a more fortunate life path than either she or Eddie had. But she knew that only determination on her own part would keep Linds on a good track.

She had built her mindset, her attitude on the realism that her well informed cynicism defined. She saw the bad, the ugly and the horrid on a daily basis, and she protected herself by hiding her hopeful side. You can't feel the disappointment if you never had the expectation.

But then things would happen to cause that kernel of hopefulness to swell.

Like seeing a laughing Nicky on a daily basis when she knew everything that had happened to him.

Grissom's dorkish delight in a particularly fast cockroach that he was sure would win the competition this year.

To see Greg goofily dancing in a fedora in the parking lot as Sara shook her head and laughed.

Sara asking about Lindsey, even after the blow-ups they had in the past.

Hearing that Ecklie was willing to spend $1 million on a kidnapped CSI.

Walking in on Doc Robbins unashamedly playing air guitar on his crutch.

SuperDave's shy smile when talking about his fiancé.

Brass' love of a good tomato salad, and his willingness to give a little extra to a friend.

And then there was Warrick, who had been a source of secret hopes and fantasies for quite a while. A gleam in his light green eyes or his infrequently seen smile (so different from his playa smirk) could light a little hopeful flame in her for days. They had flirted for years, crushing back and forth without ever making a move, a delicate dance that she had sometimes thought about moving to another level. That is, until her pragmatic side would step in with a litany of reasons why not: Linds, Sam Braun, work, their friendship …

But to see that shiny band on his finger had been a dose of realism she could have done without. It had slapped her in the face. With Vartann there effusing with delight over Warrick's news, she had no choice but to choke it all down.

She was still choking on it. Gradually they had come back to flirtations, but the tickle of it was missing. The chance that they would find themselves in a heat of the moment embrace, though always slim, was now gone. She had told him that part of the thrill of a fantasy was that it might come true. Now her little fantasies were turned on their head. Hope had been strangled, to the point of death. And what lingered was a malignant shadow of hope, fueled by jealousy and ill will.

She would never be the other woman. She had Eddie to thank for that lesson. She knew it was all for the better, because office romance rarely worked out. All she had to do was look at Gil and Sara - and that hadn't even been a real relationship.

Sometimes shit just didn't work out. And Catherine knew you got over it and you moved on. So she had gotten over it and moved on.

Hadn't she?

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A/N: Let me know what you think in a review. 


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